Nearly all of my research is done. Before I charge into the practical chapters explaining the project this paper proposes, I am going back through and editing the 120 pages that precede it. It is a strange feeling to be able to read through all of this work in one sitting. There has been so much thought, so many issues percolating in my brain as I drift off to sleep and as I step into the shower in the morning, so many hours of reading and searching through sources, so many paragraphs that seemed to take a whole afternoon to nail down. It is strange to see it all in one relatively small contained piece.

Implications of sections worry me. Because I am arguing that we demonstrate our faith through community as an organic and interactive form of evidence for our faith, I worry it could be interpreted as pietistic, that I could appear to be creating an atmosphere that puts pressure on individuals in the community to live up to a standard of good works. Reading through the flow of the chapters alerts me to this and has left me dwelling all morning (as I made meals, got kids dressed and played candy land with them) on how I can emphasize the continuity of our focus on grace and God's loving acceptance of us.

This doesn't have a lot of impact on you, my readers. I just wanted to write a few words about what it is like to go through this dissertation process. It is a struggle because it is academically difficult and because it feels so vulnerable. I am taking a position and making an argument. It reflects on me. To the degree that people like or dislike it, agree or disagree with it, it reflects on me.

I am counting on my expectation that very few people are willing to read an academic paper like this. If the first 20 pages of the history, grounds and programmatic details of Calvin Crest don't make them put it down, perhaps the interaction with Lyotard in Chapter 2 will, or the somewhat tedious analysis of Jesus' use of the kingdom of God in Chapter 3.

And then, if I do not post it electronically, it will only exist in the few hands that get a hard copy, and in the bowels of the library at Fuller Theological Seminary. Perhaps a lack of access, too, will save me.

How many dissertations or DMin ministry focus papers have you or anyone else read? I have read a few, but primarily as examples for how to write my own. I expect to be protected from readers and critics just by how boring it is.

You're funny. It's like you're an expectant father who's nervous because your baby might look too much like you. I look forward to reading your dissertation because you're writing about things I care about and because I care about you. Not that this changes the vulnerability you feel, but as it is a reflection of you, the people who matter will receive it as they receive you.

From what I've read of your paper in the proposal, I think it is very good. If you're in the tension between living up to our ideals and embodying grace, then I think you are in the right place. Is that not the question the community of God has always faced? Perhaps the Eastern Church has help in that they see salvation as a process.

As you take the risk of putting your work out there, I'm reminded of what Anton Ego, the food critic in Ratatouille said:

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.

That isn't to say that your work is "the average piece of junk," but that you are doing something worthwhile. You are creating.

I know of one DMin ministry focus paper that sits in the bowels of the Fuller library written by some pastor in Orange County. I believe it was eventually turned into a book called, The Purpose Driven Church. Whatever happened to that paper or that guy?

Thanks Brian. Thanks Tyler. Those are both very interesting, encouraging and meaningful responses to my situation.